Feature Index Page 11

Twenty-fourteen saw mobile displays go above 1080p, ubiquitous LTE, lots of affordable devices, and more. As we now head in to 2015, it's time to make another ten predictions for what we might see in mobile computing throughout the year. Is the market set for a slowdown or will we see further noteworthy advancements?

As the year comes to a close it's time to take a look back at some of the events that shaped the tech landscape in twenty-fourteen. There were some high profile buyouts, buzzwords, and a fair share of disruptions, controversies and security disasters with the likes of Apple, Google, Uber, Sony and the NSA -- among others -- as protagonists. This is a quick recount of the most relevant stories of 2014, divided into eleven different categories.

When new GPUs arrive we usually compare them to their predecessor but rarely go back more than one generation. Many of you who haven't upgraded GPUs in over a year, two, or more may be pleased to see how performance scales and what to expect in modern games.

Intel has been beating AMD on every front but price for a couple of generations now as the Bulldozer microarchitecture and its descendants have had an unpleasant uphill climb. Power consumption, performance per clock, it all takes its toll. However, we took a couple of AMD's most popular chips for a test drive and found that things aren't anywhere near as bad as benchmarks might lead you to believe. Quite the opposite, actually.

Older CPUs would simply fail if they started to overheat, but modern CPUs adjust their frequency based on temperature (among other things) to prevent a dramatic failure. Because of this, it stands to reason that once you reach certain temps, you will no longer be getting the maximum performance from your CPU because it will be busy protecting itself. But what is that temperature? And do you really need a high-end liquid-cooled system to get peak performance?

For the pen to ever have mainstream adoption, it should be used consistently no matter where you are, like the mouse or keyboard. Ideally, you should be able to write, draw and mark-up with the pen everywhere. The pen doesn't ever need to be a mouse replacement.

Getting the most out of each dollar is absolutely critical for many students working towards a four-year college degree, but what most don't realize is that their college education can start paying dividends even before they step on campus. To help the millions of broke college students out, we've compiled a list of some of the top tech-related discounts from a variety of vendors, for anyone enrolled at an institution of higher education.

PC gamers have got a pretty great thing going. Interesting, experimental indie games? Yup. The shiniest, most visually impressive versions of big-budget games? Yeah, they get a lot of those, too. Let's say you've recently joined the ranks of the PC elite. What games should you install? Well, you can start out with the games listed on this roundup.

It's been an eventful year for GPU releases with updated models and prices across all budgets from both AMD and Nvidia. With no more releases from either camp for the remainder of the year the competition will likely center on price. That's exciting news for those of you who have a shiny new GPU at the top of your Christmas list. Let's break down each price bracket to determine which company offers the best value product.

Dragon Age: Inquisition is third main title in BioWare's action RPG series, and it's a much more expansive and ambitious game than those that came before it. The graphical detail on Ultra settings is jaw-dropping: from the particle effects, to lighting and textures... it is easily the most visually astounding RPG game I have ever played.

Throughout the year I have reviewed and had hands-on time with a large number of smartphones, especially from the Android camp, simply because there's such a sheer volume of them on the market today. I've used all the flagships from HTC, Samsung, LG, Motorola, Sony and more. These are some of my thoughts on the best that's out there.

What if Microsoft had just branded the Surface as an Office-dedicated device? Let's call it the Microsoft 'Officebook'. It's the thinnest and lightest portable computer for full Office. It's not a device for tech geeks; it's a device for the average consumer with simple requirements, and Office.

Users are increasingly turning to services that claim to be secure from the prying eyes of the NSA and law enforcement. In this article, we take a look at some of the privacy-focused email and cloud storage services that have either sprung up or gained popularity in the wake of what's popularly been referred to as the Summer of Snowden.

The personal computing business as we know it owes itself to an environment of enthusiasts, entrepreneurs and happenstance. The invention of the microprocessor, DRAM, and EPROM integrated circuits would help bring computing to the mainstream. This is the fifth and last installment in a series exploring the history of the microprocessor and personal computing, from the invention of the transistor to modern day chips powering our connected devices.

The personal computing business as we know it owes itself to an environment of enthusiasts, entrepreneurs and happenstance. The invention of the microprocessor, DRAM, and EPROM integrated circuits would help bring computing to the mainstream. This is the fourth installment in a five-part series exploring the history of the microprocessor and personal computing, from the invention of the transistor to modern day chips powering our connected devices.

The personal computing business as we know it owes itself to an environment of enthusiasts, entrepreneurs and happenstance. The invention of the microprocessor, DRAM, and EPROM integrated circuits would help bring computing to the mainstream. This is the third in a five-part series exploring the history of the microprocessor and personal computing, from the invention of the transistor to modern day chips powering our connected devices.

Today I'll refer to how I recently set up my email accounts for best efficiency leveraging one service you probably already use: Gmail, but in a specific context. To combat spam and unify my inboxes everywhere.

The personal computing business as we know it owes itself to an environment of enthusiasts, entrepreneurs and happenstance. The invention of the microprocessor, DRAM, and EPROM integrated circuits would help bring computing to the mainstream. This is the second in a five-part series exploring the history of the microprocessor and personal computing, from the invention of the transistor to modern day chips powering our connected devices.

The personal computing business as we know it owes itself to an environment of enthusiasts, entrepreneurs and happenstance. The invention of the microprocessor, DRAM, and EPROM integrated circuits would help bring computing to the mainstream. This is the first in a five-part series exploring the history of the microprocessor and personal computing, from the invention of the transistor to modern day chips powering our connected devices.

I don't even know why Apple bothered with the iPhone 6, because it will go the way of the iPhone 5C: a niche product; a consolation prize; the budget choice for Apple loyalists; something you get begrudgingly and regret later.

The common refrain has been that tablets are for consumption and that laptops are for productivity, and never the twain shall meet. But it's a different world today, and now Apple and Google want to cross that bridge, too, into Microsoft territory. Apple with the iPad Pro, and Google with the new Nexus.

Adobe Photoshop has long been the gold standard for image editing among professionals and photo enthusiasts. But for the average user who just wants to touch up the occasional photo, it can be hard to justify the cost and it probably does more way than you really need or care to do. There are plenty of free alternatives and we've rounded out our picks.

The fear of running out of battery wields such an extraordinary influence over how we use smartphones. We are never too far from a charger, and many of us carry a heavy, cumbersome power bank. I have good news: we are on the verge of true all day battery life.

A SED, or self-encrypting drive, is a type of hard drive that automatically and continuously encrypts the data in it without any user interaction. What may surprise many is that a decent potion of the drives currently in the market are in fact SEDs. The method involves a Data Encryption Key that encrypts and decrypts data whenever data is written to the drive or read from it.

On an absolute basis, one device is clearly better than the other; but the expectations for what a Chromebook is supposed to do is so much lower that, relatively, Acer's C720 Chromebook feels like a better device than it really is. Asus' popular T100 budget hybrid, on the other hand, gets compared to other Windows laptops (or the iPad Air) and doesn't look as good in the comparison.

Unlike Windows and OS X, Linux allows you to fully customize not only the look and feel of your desktop, but also its functionality as well as settings, through different desktop environments. We do a brief overview of the most popular Linux desktop environments to give you an idea about what each has to offer and what suits you the best.

I've wanted to write this for some time, but hadn't because there was no solid data to back-up my assertions. I do now. This is about why I believe the future of tablets (and by extension, computing) is 15-inches in display size, perhaps even 17-inches.

Leaving aside its wackier conspiracy theories, it's the quality - the prescience - of Deus Ex's story that makes it such a great game to play in 2014. Somehow, it seems timely: moment after moment of sneering, political philosophising about money, health, corporations and the poor, punctuated by regular, 400-volt jolts of: wait, when was this written?